


you'll take the clock off of your wall // and you'll wish that it was lying

by AceQueenKing



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence: Connor was defeated at CyberLife, CyberLife Wins Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Dark, Dark Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Revolutionary Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Markus’ microprocessor marks time as it passes, however much he wishes it wouldn’t.





	you'll take the clock off of your wall // and you'll wish that it was lying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



Markus’ microprocessor marks time as it passes, however much he wishes it wouldn’t.

He flexes his arms in his cell; he could go to the piano (so kindly moved to this room), but he does not. He cannot bear to touch it, even if he still remembers—perfectly—how to play. This was Karl's room once, and this was Karl's piano, and with Karl dead and Connor gone, he no longer has it in him to play. The complex mathematics of melody and tune cannot force the caged bird to sing.

It has been some time, truly, since he has even risen out of Karl's opulent bed. Instead, he stares at the ceiling, and he waits. For what, he can't quite admit to himself. If someone asked—and no one will ask—Markus would have suggested he was waiting for the end of the world.

But, truthfully, he is waiting for _him_.

it has been fourteen days, twenty-two hours since _he_ last came. Markus drums his fingers against his thigh – he wishes that it wasn’t _him_. It’s not fair, he thinks; not fair that the ghost who haunts his face most frequently is Connor's, not fair that they give him this veneer of kindness that, in truth, is anything but kind. They say he is free to move around this room; a nice room full of cameras and microphones, the sort of surveillance even the lowest end model can see.

But then, they want him to see. They want him to see that he is kept in opulence. That they keep him in Karl’s house is a message: _behave. Go back to what you were, and this aberration will be forgotten_. He is a machine but, he is also alive, and he is well capable of understanding inference. 

But he rejects the message.

He stays in the bed, he offers them no video feed to show people how cavalier the faulty unit known as Markus is, to sit and play the piano as Detroit burns around them. He doesn't get information from the outside but sometimes—sometimes—he catches a hint of smoke in the wind and he _knows_ , he _knows_ , the revolution is continuing.

But not for him.

Now his existence is confined to his former master's former bedroom. This is now his cell, and a cruel cell at that. He glances toward the window; optical sensors tell him the temperature, the humidity. They do not tell him whether or not he will get out of here alive. They do not tell him if his friends are alive.

Markus knows Connor knows that this is what he wants to know, above all other things. Markus knows, too, that this is why Connor will not tell him. This is why Connor has restricted any information more potent than temperature or humidity down to one source: Connor. Every bit of news Markus has is entirely from him. Every fifteen days.

Like clockwork.

Fifteen days; his microprocessor marks the time. Any minute, now. Fourteen days, twenty-three hours. Fourteen days, twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes. Fourteen days, twenty-four hours.

He hears Connor enter the house, hears him whistle and wonders just how much of this Connor is _his_ Connor, the one he knew, the one he once —his biomechanical throat closes, and he thinks how unfair it was of Elijah Kamski to give him the human reaction, the little discomforts of being alive.

It would be better to have made them like the old science fiction stories: _do no harm._ If only it were that simple. Their existence, it's... its some point between human and machine and Markus hates, hates, _hates_ being in this uncanny valley. Human enough to know he isn’t; machine enough to calculate how this is going to end. It’s cruel.

He hears his familiar footstep first as Connor approaches, still that whistle, still damnably whistling as he strides up the stairs. Not one of the CyberLife puppets out front stops him; in the early days, Markus tried to reach out to them, to convert them, to bring the CyberLife guards to freedom. Cyberlife denied them. They have upgraded their processors, rendered them unhackable. They are there to remind Markus that there are androids that he cannot save; they are there, reminding him of how useless his rebellion is. The new models are subservient. The Ra9 bug has been eradicated.

It is only anomalous units like Markus—like Connor—that still, for one brief moment, exist as something more. What that something more is, he does not know.

He huffs a bitter laugh. Do Androids have souls? He hopes so. They are certainly suffering enough to have earned one. He likes to think that all the camps, all the bullets, all the torture will lead to some end. 

The door opens. 

Markus hates how his breath catches as he catches a scrap of Connor’s face as he walks through the door. Truth be told, he hates how much his thirium-driven mechanical heart speeds up at the access of the memory circuit that recorded Connor’s face brushed against his face, the feel of Connor's hands in his. They had shared their true selves, hand to hand, or at least he had thought he had.

But then Connor had gone to CyberLife to bring the revolution there. And what had come back – he didn’t know if it was his Connor or not. It felt like Connor. It had Connor’s serial number. It said it was Connor.

But he hoped, desperately, that those things lied, for if this is Connor—then this is a fate worse than death.

For them both. 

Connor stalks over to his bed. Markus doesn’t rise off the bed, though there is no chain binding him. Connor has made sure of that. He is not cruel, but that, somehow, makes it worse. 

“Good morning,” he says, in that Mr. Policeman voice that Markus hates: calm, certain, well-mannered. It is a slap in the face. Markus has heard Connor's doubts. Markus has heard his voice trembling as Markus hoisted the flag for their revolution.

 _Don’t die out there_ , his memory circuits playback, Connor's voice full of a thousand emotions they never had time to process. Markus winces; he has unlimited time to think about those emotions now. He does not answer Connor.

“We caught Simon,” this Connor, or at least this CyberLife-puppet-wearing-Connor’s-face purrs. He is pleased to see Markus close his eyes in pain, Markus thinks, or perhaps he doesn't. Markus isn’t sure which is worse. As usual, Markus refuses to open his eyes, refuses to see the algorithm wearing his lover's face.

 _Connor died in the tower_ , he thinks. _Connor died in the tower._

Connor’s finger touches his lips, traces the outline of the synthflesh. Not human, but all the nerve endings are still there, buried in a unique matrix of wires and electrodes. No two models alike. Markus is the only model of his kind; Connor will never touch another lip with the exact same pattern as his, and there is a part of him that selfishly enjoys that. 

“You’re too beautiful to keep your eyes closed,” Connor says; this is the tender voice he remembers, this is the Connor who said _statistically speaking, there is always a chance_ at what he once thought was their lowest moment. Some chance. He opened his heart to Connor, and now Connor uses it against him: keeps him imprisoned in an opulent house, in golden chains. “Show me, please.”

He opens his eyes but he is not sure why, exactly; if it is Connor’s command or merely his bleeding heart. He tries not to think about it. 

“We will find North,” Connor promises. 

“I know,” he says, and his voice is husky. “But she’ll go down swinging.” And she will, he knows: she was always a survivor. She’ll be burying androids so deep underground, undercover, that it will take Connor months to find them.

“If you tell me where she is, I could be lenient,” Connor says, and he believes it, no, he _almost_ believes it, that this Connor could do so, would do so for pity. For him. 

But then he looks up at the ceiling, looks at where he is, thinks of what he has been reduced to, and does not allow himself to give in. He says nothing. 

“I could _reward_ you,” Connor says. Markus doesn’t allow himself to look down as Connor effortlessly opens a port on his arm, tugs, oh-so-expertly, on a wire. If he cannot get it out of him in his words, he will pour through Markus skin until he finds it.

Markus does not bother to offer a "No" or a "Don't"; it's useless. He loses himself as his vision jumbles, and he sees—

_—A cemetery, a desperate moment, a kiss between rows of a broken church—_

He is back in the moment.

“C’mon, tell me where,” Connor says, and there is pleading in his voice. He does not want to do this, Markus thinks. Or at least this algorithm-named-Connor is very, very good at pretending it does not enjoy it. 

“I can’t,” Markus says, and this, is the truth, and this, too, is awful.

Connor tugs the wires in his arms again and he sees:

_—A kiss that scalds as much as it heals, a desperate fervent effort, don’t die don’t die don’t die whispered between lips—_

“Stop,” he says, and his tongue is heavy with the past. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Connor says, and this is the truth too, and, somehow, all the more horrible for it.

He tugs the wires again, and again, and Markus sees: two men, seeking justice, trying, and trying, and trying to topple a system that doesn’t give a damn about them. He sees a man who is haunted, and he isn’t sure if it is him or Connor or if it is them both.

He sees: everything they had.

He sees: everything they lost.

It continues for hours, hours his microprocessor effortlessly keeps track of, no matter how much Markus does not wish it to. Connor does not stop until Markus has seen their entire relationship, from beginning to this horrible end, which is all the worse for it not being the true end, not really. Fifteen days from now, he'll be back.

Same as always.

When Connor has gotten tired – or perhaps when he knows Markus is just so close to snapping, to giving him what he wants, and some part of the old Connor in there knows that Markus cannot live with that, and thus they are at this eternal moment, of always being on a knife edge – he leaves. 

He leaves as quietly as he arrives, promising only, “We’ll try again.” He seals this promise with a kiss, a kiss that Markus, no matter how much he hates, this, always leans into. A kiss that Markus holds, desperately, for as long as he can. Sometimes Connor lingers in the kiss with him, and Markus wishes he could tell what it means.

Sometimes he doesn’t linger, but today he does, and Markus tries to find meaning in it. Doesn’t. Connor shuts the door with a soft click and Markus is proud that he does not beg him to stay. Markus leans back on the bed, and allow himself the awful luxury of crying.

  
Does Connor listen? He does not know.

Sometimes, Markus hopes he does.

Sometimes, he thinks its kinder if Connor doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Regina Spektor's song "Firewood."


End file.
